Professional Education Case Study - Catholic Financial Life

According to Deloitte, insurance is likely to be disrupted by blockchain technology. After hearing about the rapid rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in late 2017 as well rumblings from peers in the insurance industry, Catholic Financial Life (CFL) recognized it needed to understand blockchain and determine how it might impact their relationships with customers and partners.
CFL then hired Euphrates to answer the the following questions:

What is blockchain and why should we care?

What are the developments and how might that affect our business environment and relationships down the line?

Euphrates hosted a 1 hour “Lunch and Learn” on blockchain and its insurance applications with 40 of CFL’s employees, followed by an in-depth Q&A.

Key Takeaways

The employees now understand what blockchain is, it’s first principles, and why it’s disruptive, enabling CFL to keep a pulse on the opportunities in their industry and competitive environment

As insurance startups, peers, and reinsurers begin to utilize blockchain technology, Catholic Financial has the ability to understand the developments as they relate to their core business in 2018 and beyond.

“Alec and Davis did a great job of presenting an overview of blockchain and its potential impact on the insurance industry. Many of our attendees had never heard of Blockchain so we really needed Euphrates to parcel out only what we needed to hear. Blockchain is such a complex technology and we appreciated that it was explained in language that we could understand.”

Case Study - Marquette University Blockchain Lab

Marquette University’s Blockchain Lab’s mission is to facilitate education and collaboration in the interest of advancing knowledge and implementation of distributed ledger solutions. Started as an experiment after hosting Wisconsin’s first blockchain conference in November 2017, the lab quickly grew but ran into issues generating revenue and focusing its efforts. In May 2017, the Euphrates team was hired to 1) Determine the direction of the lab, and 2) develop a financially sustainable organization.

The Process

Contextual Analysis: The lab’s audience was broken into segments, demand for blockchain education was analyzed, and a competitive analysis was performed. It was determined that significant unmet demand existed for blockchain education and networking opportunities for professionals.
Exploration: Given the lab’s resources, analysis on different paths forward was conducted. It was concluded that providing high quality education in southeastern Wisconsin and an opportunity for corporations, entrepreneurs, and students to network, enabled the lab to capture the most value.
Strategy: A mission statement was developed that enabled the lab the flexibility to offer new value in the future yet was specific enough resonate with the lab’s audience. In order to ensure the long-term success, a corporate structure and advisory board with experienced entrepreneurs was created. KPIs were developed and core activities were determined. All non-revenue generating paths were eliminated in the short term. With projected revenues coming primarily from events and sponsorships, efforts were focused on developing marketing partnerships with local organizations.

The Result

The result of these local partnerships boosted ticket revenues by 200%. Overall revenue for the lab increased by 500% in two months since the beginning of May 2018. Event engagement is at an all time high and the weighted average attendee rating of the lab’s events is 4.8/5.